Run Away With My Heart
by wrecked.visage
Summary: Brian and Maggie are best friends. They're also madly in love with one another, they both just refuse to admit it. Will they find their way to be together, or will they continue on this path of denial?    Synyster Gates/OC fanfic.
1. Chapter 1

It was late when I finally made it home from my photo shoot. I kept strange hours, since I was moonlighting almost literally as an alternative model, but it was mostly because of the photographers I worked with. They held day jobs, just like me, only their schedules kept them in their studios until five and six in the evenings. My day job was normal. I was a teacher. My current position as a twelfth grade literature teacher kept me busy enough, but let's face it. The pay really isn't the highest out there. My heart was in it, though, because I knew how badly our education system needed teachers who cared genuinely about their students.

After entering the empty studio apartment that I shared with a roommate, I walked into the corner of the apartment where the beds were, dumped my train case by my tiny closet and threw my ankle-length coat onto my bed. It was around two in the morning on a Sunday by now. I desperately needed a shower and a few hours of sleep. I had papers to grade and a weekly lesson plan to go over before Monday morning.

My roommate, Brian, had also been my best friend since grade school. He and I met on the playground in first grade, when the school bully was busy dragging me around by my long, brown hair. Brian broke it up by hauling the kid off of me and hugged me, told me his name and he'd never let anyone hurt me again. Brian was the sweetest kid, awkward as he was. He'd kept his word, mostly. We were adults now, and I had dated a few guys in high school and college and none of them ended well for me, which angered Brian from time to time.

I stalked into the bathroom and stripped, showering quickly. I brushed my hair and put it into two braids so it'd be wavy when it dried. I had one of my favorite towels wrapped around my torso, a cushy, thick navy blue towel. When I walked out into the apartment, I wasn't expecting Brian to be home. Seeing him sitting on the bed with his head in his hands startled me and I yelped, which scared him. He jumped also and looked up at me, his dark brown eyes wide with fear. His usually carefully disheveled hair was mussed, like he'd been messing with it.

"Jesus, Garcia, scare me half to death, will ya?" Brian said on a nervous laugh. Brian had started calling me Garcia as a joke, because he'd always call me when he was away to have me look things up for him. He joked that I was his own personal Penelope Garcia, only not as blonde or flamboyant as the Criminal Minds character. It stuck with me ever since, and to Brian's unending delight, everyone had started calling me Garcia.

"Sorry, Bri. I didn't know you'd be home tonight. Hey, what are you doing home, anyway? I wasn't expecting you until at least Monday afternoon," I said as I shuffled over to my narrow chest of drawers. I retrieved a camisole and pair of boy shorts, dropping my towel to pull them on. Even though Brian's bed was only eight or so feet from mine, he respectfully kept his eyes on the ground.

"Honestly? I was just tired of being away from home, my own bed, my best friend," he said. I walked over to his bed and dropped myself heavily on my back right behind him, shifting around until I was curled around his hips, pressing my legs into one of his, draping one arm across his lap.

"I missed you, too, but that doesn't tell me why you look like someone just kicked your puppy," I pressed.

"It's really what I just told you, Mags. I just missed home." Brian looked down at my face in the dim light coming from his bedside lamp and smiled, reaching down with one of his hands to pat my cheek. I was skeptical. Brian wasn't usually so somber, so this change in his demeanor was a little disconcerting. I watched from where I was curled around his hips as he took his sneakers off, stuffing them into one of the cubbies built into his bed. His socks were next and then he stood up. I grumbled and shifted back on his bed so I wouldn't fall, watching him carefully.

"How was your tour?" I asked as I sat up on his bed, pulling one of his pillows down from the headboard, hugging it to my chest.

"It wasn't bad. Different, but not bad. Can we talk about it after we both get some sleep?" Brian sounded tired and troubled. I was beginning to wonder what had gone so terribly wrong on this much anticipated tour with his band. He shuffled to the bathroom and shut the door quietly behind himself. I heard the water turn on and a few minutes later he came back out, the smell of his cinnamon toothpaste filling the small space. His face was clean now, free of the eyeliner he wore almost all the time. He stopped at the foot of his bed and waited until I put his pillow back where it belonged and moved before he literally faceplanted on his bed. I laughed and went to my own bed, crawling under my fleece throw, snuggling into a pillow. Sleep finally claimed me some time later.


	2. Chapter 2

Brian's POV

I listened intently as Maggie got into her bed, keeping my face pressed into my blanket. Once I was certain she had gone to sleep, I got up. I knew she was concerned about me. I just wasn't sure how to tell her what happened while I was gone.

I changed out of my ripped jeans into a pair of loose cotton lounge pants, opting to just take my shirt off and leave it be. Maggie had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. First grade. We knew everything there was to know about each other. For the most part, that is. What I had neglected to ever tell her was that for the past seven years, I've been madly in love with her. I crushed on her in high school, but she was my best friend. She also had a boyfriend. Maggie had a heart of gold, pretty green eyes and a certain air of mystery about her that drove the boys at school mad. The guys wanted to date her, the girls wanted to be her. She was rarely without a boyfriend then and even when she wasn't exclusive with someone, there was no shortage of guys waiting to take her out for the night.

Who could blame them then? She was even prettier now. Over the years her body had filled out in exactly the right ways. Her hair was long and shiny and soft. She refused to dye it and used only the nicest products on it, so it always smelled great and had that healthy sheen to it. Her bright green eyes were expressive and sultry, just the right shape. Her mouth was pouty and her skin was flawless. She'd gotten a few piercings in high school, and after graduation, got several tattoos. The one hat intrigued me the most was the word "Agony" tattooed just below her waist, between two sparrows on her hips. She had several others on her legs and a nice back piece and half sleeves. Her ears were stretched, though I wasn't sure if she was still wearing eight gauge earrings or if she'd stretched beyond that now. The school wasn't happy about her having visible tattoos and stretched ears but Maggie was an asset they couldn't afford to lose.

One of the tattoos she had was one she'd gotten for my band, and it was on the top of her left foot. It was a small deathbat. When she came home sporting that one, I was floored. I asked her why she had done it, and her response was one I'll never forget. She explained that she'd been my biggest supporter for so long, she wanted everyone to know she had my back and my band's back. She also said it was just a bad ass design and so many of our songs were special or important or somehow touched her life.

I went back to bed after finding a snack and tried to sleep, but found it hard to doze off because my thoughts kept screaming at me about her, about my now ex-girlfriend Nadia, what to do about the whole thing. It turned out Nadia was using me for my money, which wasn't too shocking once I thought about it. Maggie was muttering in her sleep and I had a hard time making out what she was saying, but it distracted me from my thoughts enough to doze off for a while.

When I woke up a few hours later, the sun was streaming in through the window above Maggie's bed, casting a warm glow on the exposed, colorful skin of her shoulders and her peaceful face. She was so beautiful. I couldn't stop myself from crawling out of my bed and padding quietly across the apartment to hers. She stirred when I crawled onto her bed, shifting now so that she was sitting up a little against her headboard.

"What's wrong, Bri?" Maggie asked, her voice thick with sleep, eyes bleary, moving her blanket out of my way so I could scoot right up next to her. She draped her blanket over me and looked at my face, looking for the answers I knew she wanted. I just offered her a small smile and nuzzled my face against the soft skin of her shoulder, burying my nose in her neck. She smelled good, clean, like a mix between her body wash and the detergent she used to wash our sheets.

"We'll talk about it later, go back to sleep," I whispered, sliding my arms around her torso. She hummed in agreement and snuggled closer to me, her breathing finally slowing down and evening out. Before long, I found myself dozing off again as well.

The afternoon found us lounging around the apartment in our pajamas, drinking coffee and nibbling on junk food. I could tell that Maggie was worried about me, I caught the looks on her face when she thought I wasn't paying attention. Even though she knew I had things on my mind, she was giving me space to work it out on my own. She'd known me long enough to know I'd come to her when I was ready to talk, and for that, I was grateful. By three, Maggie decided to start grading papers. She was impossibly quiet, flipping through the huge stack on the table, going over the various assignments, humming every once in a while when she finds a mistake, marking through them and adding notes. Occasionally, she gets this look on her face and I know that look. It's her teacher face. That face of disappointment only teachers have when they know you know the material but you're too lazy to actually do it. She finishes a little later and walks over to the couch, beckoning me to sit next to her. Moments like these feel like there's more to our relationship than just us being best friends and roommates.

"Wanna talk about it now?" Maggie questions as I lower myself onto the couch, leaning against her heavily.

"I walked into the hotel room I was sharing with Nadia and found her in a very compromising position," I said, closing my eyes against the twinge of pain I felt at mentioning what happened. That was all I needed to say for her to understand exactly what I meant. Maggie grumbled something unintelligible and wrapped her arm around my shoulders, hugging me close to her petite frame.

"I'm sorry, honey. She wasn't right for you anyway. Not your type," she said matter of factly. That's just how Maggie was. She had no issue pointing out things that she thought were wrong. Other people were constantly taken aback by her straight forward personality, but this was so familiar to me, it didn't phase me.

"I know, Mags. But it doesn't make it hurt less," I said quietly, sighing. She just rubs my arm, nuzzling my shaggy hair with her nose. I hear her quiet sigh and lean into her more, relishing the comfort I find in her embrace.

"Spring break is coming up, what do you have planned?" Maggie asked me suddenly after several moments of tense silence.

"Nothing, why?"

"We should take a vacation. Hit the beach. Do something, get out of town for a while. What do you think?" she asked, leaning away from me to watch my expression.

"Sounds good to me, I suppose." Maggie just smiles and nods, leaning back into me, and we sit on the couch like that until that evening.


	3. Chapter 3

Maggie's POV

Dinnertime rolled around and Brian and I were still just sitting around on the couch, watching Law and Order reruns. I was starting to get a little hungry, since we mostly just snacked all day.

"Hey, Bri?" I nudged Brian and started to reach for my phone on the coffee table.

"Yeah, Garcia?"

"Pizza okay for dinner? I don't wanna cook or get dressed to leave," I said, poking through the contacts in my phone to find the pizza place's number. Brian nodded in agreement and I called to place our order. While I was on the phone, I got up from the couch, which earned a grumble from Brian, so that I could go into the kitchen and get a glass of water. I was standing by the sink with my water, thinking to myself. Brian was my best friend. He knew everything about me. There had been moments during our friendship where things happened and we ended up in awkward, compromising positions, but nothing ever came of them. In high school, we were hanging out together at a party and decided to play spin the bottle. We sat across from each other and laughed it up whenever we had to kiss someone we normally wouldn't look at twice. Then, because it's my kind of bad luck, one of my spins landed on him. My best friend. I didn't think kissing him would be strange or weird, or even feel forced. But it did. I kissed him, and I found myself hoping the floor would open up and swallow me.

But now, things were different. When I looked at Brian, I saw what other women saw. I saw his pretty, dark eyes. I saw his sculpted cheekbones. His kind smile. I didn't just see my best friend. I saw a sexy man. I saw the appeal. That thought scared me a little. I knew he would never see me as anything but his friend.

I had been in the kitchen wallowing for a while when he came in to get something to drink. After he got a glass of water, he leaned against the counter next to me and nudged my shoulder with his.

"What's going on in that pretty head of yours, Maggie?" Brian asked quietly.

"Do you remember that train wreck party we went to in tenth grade? Taylor Williams threw it, invited the whole school," I said, looking at him. Brian grinned, nodding.

"Yeah. Spin the bottle was the train wreck, the party wasn't so bad. I heard you hooked up with the captain of the football team that night," he said on a laugh. I felt myself blush. That rumor hadn't died after all these years. It wasn't true, a fabrication meant to tarnish not only my reputation but that of Cody Bryan, the star football player that year. We had been close to dating until Molly Williams came along. She was everything I wasn't. Blonde, blue eyes and slutty. She was Taylor's sister.

"You can fuck right off, Brian. You know as well as I do it never happened," I grouched, still only slightly sore about the whole thing. Brian was just outright laughing now, clutching his glass of water close to his chest, presumably to keep it contained. I shook my head and watched him laughing, smirking in spite of myself. His laugh was beautiful. When he would sincerely laugh about something, it was all I could do not to laugh with him.

"Yep. I know. Half the school was jealous of him. The other half was jealous of you, for ages." I always wondered why anyone in our school was jealous of me. I was average. Brown hair, green eyes, awkward lips. I wasn't tall or busty. I was just Margaret.

I was about to tell Brian off when the doorbell rang. I shuffled over to the door, picking my wallet out of the ostentatious bowl by the door that Brian insisted we have. I fished through it and opened the door, paying for our pizza and thanking the delivery boy. Brian was moving around in the kitchen, getting plates and probably opening each of us a beer. I knew that we both loved drowning our pizza in Parmesan cheese, so I'd bet my foot that it was already on the small table, waiting for us. I made my way into the kitchen and put the two boxes down, smiling at Brian as he opened them both and dished up our dinner.

I thought about how well we worked together like this, like a well-oiled machine as I pulled my chair out and sat down. He did the same and we ate in companionable silence, only commenting a few times about the food or weather. I wondered briefly what it'd be like to actually date him, to have the status of rock star girlfriend. Sure, as a model, I had dated a few guys in bands, but his was actually successful, they were more than just some garage punk band, pissing off the neighbors. There were times where we'd be out shopping for groceries and he'd be stopped to sign something or someone would want a picture. He was always apologetic about it, but I didn't really mind. It came with the territory. I recalled the first time someone recognized me while he was with me, and that was an awkward conversation. I had been offered a sizeable amount of money to do a nude spread for a calendar. Far be it from me to turn down a month's wages at my regular job for a few hours' worth of work, so he went with me. It was tastefully done, I enjoyed myself and had forged a solid working relationship with a new photographer. Brian was more embarrassed than I was when a kid who couldn't possibly have been old enough to have the calendar approached me. It was a job to me, nothing more or less. Brian's face was priceless, though, and to this day, I give him grief over it.

When we were both finished with our dinner, I shooed him away to wash the plates we used and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. When I was finished I went into the living room to find Brian sprawled on the couch, flipping through the channels on TV. I walked over to the couch and moved his feet long enough to sit down, resting them on my lap. My fingertips dance idly up and down his shins, stopping short of his knees. If I find a ticklish spot, Brian snickers and squirms and I smile. Some of our friends swore we'd be perfect with one another. I always told my girlfriends that Brian just didn't see me like that. I was his kid sister, if anything, and as much as I'd like for him to want more, who am I kidding?

A soft snore from the other end of the couch alerts me to the fact that Brian's out cold now. We had made it through a few episodes of CSI, which was a mutual favorite. I make it through one last episode before I carefully push his feet off my lap, depositing them back on the couch. I grab his throw from his bed and take it back to the couch to drape over his body, turning the TV off before going to bed, tossing fitfully before finally dozing off around one in the morning.


End file.
